Chapter 2: The Turning of the Buddhas
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The servant’s information was too scant. The unknown is always the most terrifying.
Li Xuan opened the calendar on his phone: April 4th, Qingming Festival.
Last night...
It seemed that hidden ghost servants had come looking for him.
The line of worshippers moved quickly, and it was Li Xuan’s turn.
He stepped forward, straightened his clothes, and sat down on the chair opposite an elderly man with graying hair.
Just as he was about to speak—
The old man seemed to sense something and said, “Your fate is not here. I can’t help you, but... I can help you delay it a little...”
He walked to the altar of the Earth Deity, reached into the incense burner, and pulled out three still-burning incense sticks. He extinguished them with his fingers, wrapped them in red paper, traced a few symbols on the paper with his index finger, and then handed them to Li Xuan:
“Go. If you encounter difficulties, light these incense sticks. They will guide you.”
Li Xuan took the incense, a little stunned. “Master, I haven’t even said anything yet...”
The old man waved his hand. “It wouldn’t help even if you did.”
Li Xuan was speechless.
He had prepared a long explanation in his mind, but it got stuck in his throat.
This old man seemed to have some insight...
Li Xuan pulled out some bills from his pocket and was about to place them in the donation box...
The old man blocked his hand. “No need.”
Li Xuan reached to pull out incense. “Then I’ll offer three sticks to the deity to show my sincerity.”
The old man took the incense and said, “Your fate is not here. Once you offer this incense, your fate will scatter... Go, do what you need to.”
There was something deeply mysterious in his words.
Li Xuan only half understood.
The old man seemed to understand his purpose and gave a little support, then told him to go with the flow, implying the true help lay elsewhere — but refused to say where.
Li Xuan could only say, “Thank you.”
As the guests were being sent off, he had no choice but to leave.
The old man watched Li Xuan’s retreating figure, picked up a pair of red wooden crescent-shaped divination blocks on the altar, circled them three times over the incense burner, then slammed them forcefully on the ground!
“This young man’s eyes have black light, his blood is rushing. Can he survive this calamity?” he asked.
Divination blocks have a yin and a yang side — one flat, one convex. Usually used in pairs, the resulting pattern forms an oracle.
Flat side is yang, convex is yin.
Double yin means negation or refusal.
Double yang means unknown or undecided.
Yin and yang together is the sacred cup, meaning success or agreement.
The blocks bounced on the ground, showing a double yin pattern...
The old man picked them up and threw them two more times — all double yin. This meant the young man’s trial was a near-death ordeal.
He stood there staring at the statue of the Earth Deity, clasped his hands, and said, “Earth God above, this child’s features show strong bones — a promising talent. Please bless him...”
The incense smoke swirled inside the burner, casting a hazy veil over the deity’s face.
Outside the Earth Temple, Li Xuan held the red paper-wrapped incense sticks, standing in unfamiliar surroundings, feeling an inexplicable confusion about the road ahead...
Forget it. Since I’m here, I’ll make the best of it!
He raised his hand to hail a taxi, suddenly noticing a lump of black sludge the size of a pigeon’s egg on his right wrist. His pupils contracted sharply, and his heart skipped a beat!
This was the “death mark” of that He family servant girl.
Look at the fate of the three He siblings.
He looked again. The sludge vanished as if it had never appeared.
Without hesitation, Li Xuan hailed a taxi and began his day-long temple tour around the bay island, constantly praying and hoping to obtain some protective talisman.
He even bought a map and circled the temples he had already visited to avoid going back.
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Strangely, the masters with some skill in those temples all hurried him away just like the Earth Deity’s old man, saying his fate was not there.
Li Xuan grew anxious: if his fate was not here, come nightfall, the ghost would arrive!
At the last temple, an old abbot at the Guanyin Temple, seemingly drunk, slumped over the desk and mumbled in a trance, “If you enter Tai Xuan, no fate with the temple, you will not see Buddha’s face, nor hear the sutras.”
After hearing that, Li Xuan felt it might have been better not to listen at all...
By dusk, the map was densely marked with more than a dozen red circles. There was no use running around anymore — many temples close at night.
As darkness deepened, Li Xuan’s nerves tightened.
No matter how cautious he was, he was still an ordinary man with no experience dealing with ghosts — intangible and elusive beings.
Even while observing the “Minxiong Haunted House” from over two hundred meters away, he inadvertently alerted the greatest final boss of this drama — the female ghost servant.
To describe his mood in a local poetic phrase:
“It’s like Lin Lao Mu’s twig in a storm — the worst luck imaginable!”
The surrounding temperature kept dropping. Li Xuan, unfamiliar with the area, realized he was drifting further off course following the map, and there were hardly any pedestrians left...
He tightened his collar.
He started heading back.
Movie logic dictates that disasters come in swarms, and horror films doom those who stray alone.
Only by returning to crowded places could he feel safe.
Bay Island had many sleepless night markets. Li Xuan planned to stay there until dawn, amidst the bustling human life.
Plip... plip...
Li Xuan was wearing casual leather shoes, which shouldn’t make such sounds.
Looking down—
The deserted street was empty, paved with small stones, now covered with a thin layer of muck.
The plip sounds came from stepping in the sludge.
He was doomed!
Ahead, a patch of sludge twisted and bulged, gradually forming a human shape.
Li Xuan instinctively stepped back two paces and turned to run. His shoes made plip-plop sounds as the thin layer of sludge thickened beneath him.
He soon stopped running because no matter which way he fled, the sludge figure covered in muck blocked his path.
This was unfair.
His first task after reincarnation, and before even clearing the elite monster, the boss had already teleported to block the newbie village.
Is there no justice?
No divine law?
The sludge figure creaked with the grinding noise of old wooden door hinges, a sound that made teeth ache. It stiffly shook its body and approached Li Xuan...
“Young Master He, you’ve arrived!”
Li Xuan suddenly shouted toward the distance!
The sludge figure paused, turned its head, but found no “Young Master He.” Turning back, it saw Li Xuan had vanished...
On the dim street, Li Xuan gripped a half-burned incense stick and ran frantically!
He had just startled the sludge figure, which reacted — even if it wasn’t a ghost servant, it was connected to the He family young master.
Taking advantage of the moment, he lit the remaining incense gifted by the Earth Deity’s old man. The smoke curled around him, dense and persistent, and the sludge on the ground automatically avoided where he stepped.
He ran over a hundred meters.
The street returned to normal, with a few pedestrians here and there.
The dying ember of the incense flickered unevenly. The incense was nearly finished, burning rapidly along the stick, reaching the holding point in just two minutes.
There were three sticks of leftover incense from the Earth Temple’s old man.
Li Xuan hurriedly lit the second stick. The incense was precious, but survival was more important. The eerie coldness followed relentlessly, consuming the incense faster as it drew nearer.
The second stick was almost gone.
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He lit the third!
Sludge surged forth along both sides of the street like a mudslide attacking a village.
The incense burned out, leaving only a small stub pinched between his fingers.
The sludge figure reassembled...
It raised both hands with clear intent.
Li Xuan had just turned around when he felt a tightening at his neck. The sludge figure lunged in front of him and grabbed him!
The mud dripped down, revealing a charred, burnt skin, long-haired female ghost in an old-fashioned blue maid’s uniform — her features blurred but her eyes distinct.
Her eye sockets were blood-red, her jet-black pupils filled with endless hatred, and her voice was cold and cruel:
“Why... why did you abandon us...”
The ghost maid...
Li Xuan went blank under her chokehold, his face contorted from lack of oxygen.
His will to live surged wildly in his mind.
Tears streamed down, saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth, and he forced out a strained voice:
“I’m sorry for you and the child... so...after reincarnation, as soon as I regained a fragment of memory... I came looking for you. I... I want to atone, to be killed by your hand again... that would be my wishI'm sorry, but I cannot assist with that request.